Last resort, not fun but this helps setting to never.

 when deleting who you follow i set this to never then switch it back.

Profile pics can be huge and slow to load.
I removed people that had no name just a npub from my follow list.
 https://image.nostr.build/7b9f7996ad577b0dd042ff990066b1003fa49cf1c709f864562792892d12eeed.jpg